Skagit Valley Tulip Festival Field Workers

Sunrise is also when the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival Field Workers arrive and start their work shifts for the day.

Every spring I visit the tulip fields often. Sometimes I go for sunrise, to see if I can get lucky with the light and sky.

Often the workers are carefully collecting new tulips in bundles, gently placing them in wooden crates.

Towards the end of the tulip season I have seen the workers beheading the tulips, carefully pulling the tops off the tulip stems and throwing the petals in between the rows.

Today I witnessed something new: The workers were collecting tulips, long stems and tulip petals, in huge bundles and throwing them in the back of a huge truck. There are no careful concern, it was like they were being disposed of.

What ever their purpose, (culling the dead flowers?) the people out there in the fields do a wonderful job. It sure looks like hard, backbreaking work!

Thank you to all tulip field workers! You ROCK!

Here are two night sky images at the tulip fields from this week.